Two UA studio art alumni recently completed a set of innovative bicycle racks, the second of their kind, for the City of Tuscaloosa. The unique, sculptural bike racks, designed by Brandt Deeds (BA 2017) and built by Deeds and Alli Sloan (BA 2015) were installed at the new Alberta Park, next door to The Gateway, Alberta’s Technology and Innovation Center on University Boulevard, during the first week of September 2017. Alberta Park is part of a larger project of rebuilding and improvements in Tuscaloosa along the path of the April 27, 2011, tornado. Both bike racks are part of a plan, supported by the City of Tuscaloosa, The University of Alabama and other community organizations to encourage more biking in and around Tuscaloosa. From the beginning, Deeds and Sloan have been enthusiastic about the design-build project. Professor Craig Wedderspoon, who has been overseeing their work in the UA art foundry, said that they easily worked together because they were on the same page from the start. “Alli and Brandt are both avid bikers so they know what bikers want in bike racks, what adaptations are needed, like the way locks fit or how many bikes can actually fit in a public rack. They each came up with designs on their own and when we met, we realized their ideas were very similar.” Last summer, Alli Sloan designed the bike racks at 4th Street and 23rd Avenue downtown and then she and Deeds built those. This summer, Deeds’ design was built by Sloan and Deeds for Alberta Park. Like its predecessor in downtown Tuscaloosa, the Alberta Park set’s unusual design is innovative and practical. The designs are similar in size, but each is unique unto itself and quite different from standard bike racks. Sloan described her bike rack design as “an organic, wave-like composition.” The steel pipes in each design curve are undulating circles that echo the shapes of bicycle wheels, creating eye-catching patterns that stand out like sculpture. But those undulations have a practical value, too. Sloan said that the variety of sizes of loops in the rack’s design allows bikers with U-locks to more easily lock up their bicycles. Both bike racks can hold up to sixteen bikes each, as opposed to only seven bikes on the factory-made designs that would have been used. Each student brings a unique skill set to the project. Originally an engineering student, Brandt Deeds graduated in the summer of 2017 with a BA in studio art, focusing on sculpture, and a minor in mechanical engineering. Alli Sloan double-majored in advertising and studio art with a focus on graphic design in 2015. Both alumni also designed and built steel sculptures for the Nucor Children’s Charity Classic silent auction and took courses in sculpture with Professor Craig Wedderspoon. For more information about The University of Alabama’s programs in studio art and art history, go here: https://art.ua.edu/academics/graduate-programs/art-requirements/.
UA Sophomores Sculpt Steel Flowers for Shelby Park
The giant flowers that have arched above the UA art foundry behind the Bureau of Mines for several weeks will have a new home soon! The steel sculpture was designed and created this summer by two sophomore sculpture students at UA, Ringo Lisko and Amber Daum. It was commissioned by The Arts Council of Tuscaloosa, Tuscaloosa County Park & Recreation Authority (PARA) and The University of Alabama Department of Art and Art History as part of the Tuscaloosa Public Art Project and will be installed at Annette M. Shelby Park on 15th Street in Tuscaloosa.
Tobias Layman MFA Thesis Exhibition
Graduate student in sculpture Tobias Layman will present his master of fine arts thesis exhibition, Out of Order, at the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center in The Arts Council Gallery March 12-30, 2018. A reception for the artist will be held Thursday, March 22 from 5-7 pm. Layman works in kinetic sculpture created from wood, metal and found objects. He writes in his artist statement that his sculptures are something more than the run-of-the-mill machine. They "share experiences and sensations for an audience. The rough and unrefined aesthetic give the machines character and personality. The machines play with found objects in a way to trigger memories for an audience. Without the object the machine is a just a machine, but with the object the machine now has a sentient purpose. The object serves as a way for the machine to better engage with an audience. A conversation is started, centered around the found object. The machine tells a story and, in turn, generates stories from an audience. The machine will tell the same story in the same manner, but the audience will interact with that story and change it in their own way. This is the intent of my kinetic sculptures. They are the means for people to share a common bond and relation with a machine, but also interact and engage with other people." Tobias Layman is a graduate student in sculpture , with an assistantship teaching courses in Ceramics I, Drawing I and 3D Design. Layman received the BFA, cum laude, in ceramics, from Jacksonville State University in 2014. He presented his MA exhibition, Grinding Away, in February 2017 at the Sella-Granata Art Gallery on UA campus. He has exhibited in national and regional exhibitions including 35 Live: CoCA Member’s Show, Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle, WA; DAMNED IX, Detroit, MI; A Different Vision, Plymouth, MA; The Big Dance Exhibit, a juried exhibition in Des Moines, IA; and Abstracts Art Exhibition, Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery, where he received an honorable mention. In 2017, he took third place at the KAO International Kinetic Art Competition in Boynton Beach, Florida. Layman has been a studio assistant for the Department of Art at Jacksonville State University, an assistant instructor at John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC, and an instructor and ceramic technician at Earthworks Pottery Studio in Rome, GA. He is a recipient of the Thames Endowed Scholarship and the Joseph and Allen Sella Endowed Scholarship at UA. See videos of Tobias Layman's kinetic sculptures here: http://talsculpture.weebly.com/videos.html. A gallery talk he gave during the department’s 2017 Graduate Student Show about his work process is in a video here: https://vimeo.com/240537838. This exhibition is in partial fulfillment of the Master of Fine Arts degree in the Department of Art and Art History at The University of Alabama. For more information on the graduate programs of the UA department of art and art history, visit this link: http://art.ua.edu/academics/graduate-programs/art-requirements/. The Arts Council Gallery is open weekdays 9 a.m.-noon and 1-4 p.m. with free admission. The Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center is located at 620 Greensboro Avenue in Downtown Tuscaloosa. For more information about the CAC, The Arts Council or Bama Theatre, patrons should LIKE the Facebook page “The Arts Council – Bama Theatre – Cultural Arts Center” and follow tuscarts on Twitter. Call 205-758-5195 or visit tuscarts.org for further information.
UA Art Student Creates Moments in Painting and Sculpture
APR 7-16 First Friday reception, Moment | Momento: Jamie Reschke BFA Exhibition, Harrison Galleries, 6-9 pm Harrison Galleries will host an exhibition by University of Alabama BFA major Jamie Reschke, April 7 through April 16 in downtown Tuscaloosa. Moment | Momento opens with a reception on First Friday, April 7 from 6:00 to 9:00 pm. In this exhibition, Reschke intends to capture an ephemeral moment of experience, creating a "momento," the Italian word for "moment," for the future, in her two- and three-dimensional art. "My sculptures are figurative glimpses of vulnerability cast into bronze...I use the figure to capture unseen moments I have experienced and overcome." Art-making also becomes an activity connecting her to others as she incorporates the images of people she meets in her travels into her work, in both painting and sculpture. About working on this exhibition in her last year at UA, Reschke said, "This whole process has taught me a lot about myself, my abilities and the value of the important moments we experience in our lives. Through this body of work, I hope the viewer experiences their own moment with my art." Born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada, Jamie Reschke transferred to The University of Alabama from Huntingdon College in the fall of 2015. She is a candidate for the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2017; her major concentration is painting and her secondary concentration is sculpture. She has participated in numerous regional art exhibitions including Annual West Alabama Juried Shows in Tuscaloosa in 2015 and 2016 and Annual BFA Juried Exhibitions at UA in 2015 and 2016. She curated the exhibition, Intimacy: Enrico Berni, at the Ganzo Cultural and Gastronomic Association at Apicius International School of Hospitality in Florence, Italy; and co-curated the UA student sculpture exhibition, QUICKTURNAROUND, at the UA Gallery in Tuscaloosa. Reschke has had internships at the Florence University of the Arts (Florence, Italy) and the Montgomery (Ala.) Museum of Fine Arts. She was awarded the Ann D. Lary Scholarship, the Windgate Charitable Foundation Endowed Studio Arts Scholarship. She received the David Larson Student Award at the 49th Annual Montgomery Art Guild Regions Bank Exhibition. After graduation, Reschke hopes to earn a master's degree in art history and continue in museum studies. Harrison Galleries is located at 2315 University Boulevard in downtown Tuscaloosa and is open Monday through Friday, 12 noon to 5:00 pm, and by appointment. Please call (205) 464-0054 to check for updates to the exhibition schedule. The Bachelor of Fine Arts degree is the professional degree for the artist; it is also the foundation for the masters program in studio art at UA. For more information about the BFA degree and our other degree programs in the UA Department of Art and Art History, go to http://art.ua.edu/academics/undergraduate-programs/babfa-in-studio-art/ or contact the department at (205) 348-5967.
Renown Woodworker to Speak at UA
[This press release has been updated.] The Visiting Artist and Scholar Lecture Series presents woodworker and jewelry maker Kimberly Winkle for demonstrations and an artist talk at UA this month. Thursday, February 23, 9 am-noon, Winkle will give a wood shop demonstration in Woods Hall 104. On Thursday afternoon, attendees are invited to meet the artist, 3-5 pm, in the Birmingham and Central Bank rooms at the Bryant Conference Center. On Friday, February 24, 1-3 pm, she will give an artist talk on "What It Takes to Be an Artist" in Woods Hall 115. And on Saturday February 25, 10-11:30 am, she will give a milk paint demonstration and discussion in David Paterson's wood shop. Kimberly Winkle is Associate Professor of Art at Tennessee Technological University. She received the BFA in ceramics from the University of Oklahoma and the MFA in furniture design from San Diego State University. Winkle has taught at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Anderson Ranch Art Center, The Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, John C. Campbell Folk School and the Appalachian Center for Craft. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, including SOFA Chicago, Wanted Design NYC and the Architectural Digest Home Show. Her work has been included in a number of publications, including Fine Woodworking, Woodworker, and Woodworker West magazines and the books 500 Tables, 500 Chairs, Fine Woodworking Design Book 8, among others. Winkle has completed several artist residencies, including the International Turning Exchange (I.T.E.) at the Center for Art in Wood in Philadelphia, the Windgate Artist Residency at State University New York (SUNY) Purchase, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and at the Appalachian Center for Craft. She has been awarded 4 Niche awards, a State of Tennessee Individual Artist Award in 2011 and the Society of Arts and Crafts (Boston) John D. Mineck furniture fellowship in 2014. Winkle's website is here. Schedule of Events THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23 9 a.m.-12 noon. Wood Shop Demo, Woods Hall 104 (corrected time and location) 3-5 p.m. Wine and Cheese Meet and Greet with Focus on Jewelry, Bryant Conference Center, Birmingham and Central Bank rooms FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24 1-3 p.m. Artist Talk “What It Takes to Be an Artist” Woods Hall 115 SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25 10-11:30 a.m. Milk Paint Demo and Discussion, David Paterson’s wood shop The Visiting Artist and Scholar Lecture Series is sponsored by the Department of Art and Art History, the Department of Art and Art History Visiting Artist Committee, the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Continuing Studies at The University of Alabama. Contact: Professor Craig Wedderspoon: craig.wedderspoon@ua.edu or (205) 348-1898.
UA Sculpture Students Exhibit at UA Gallery
UA graduate and undergraduate students in sculpture will display their work in an exhibition titled QUICKTURNAROUND at The University of Alabama Gallery at the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center, February 1-28, 2017. The public is invited to a First Friday reception, February 3, 5-8 pm in the gallery at 620 Greensboro Avenue in downtown Tuscaloosa. Recent art works by Amber Rae Daum, Brandt Deeds, Megan Fletcher, Jenn Gault, Nick Jackson, Paget Kern, Lisa Meister, Erin Mosley, Tobias Layman, Ringo Lisko, Richard Oliver Reed, Jamie Reschke, Amy Smoot, Ryan Snowden, Madison Sullivan - all current students of sculpture professor Craig Wedderspoon - will be featured in the gallery. The exhibition is supported by the UA Department of Art and Art History and the College of Arts and Sciences. The UA Gallery is open Monday-Friday, 9 am to 5 pm and closed Saturday and Sunday and open for Tuscaloosa First Friday noon-8 pm. For more information about the programs in art and art history at UA, click here.
Dual Exhibition Reveals Transformative Nature of Art
Exhibitions: Francesca Baldarelli: 54 Phillips Way | Tobias Layman: Grinding Away Dates: February 2-16, 2017 Where: Sella-Granata Art Gallery, 109 Woods Hall, UA campus Reception: Thursday, February 2, 4-6 p.m., Sella-Granata Art Gallery The University of Alabama Department of Art and Art History is pleased to present the Master of Arts exhibitions of Francesca Baldarelli and Tobias Layman, February 2-16, 2017, in the Sella-Granata Art Gallery. Layman's exhibition, titled Grinding Away and Baldarelli's exhibition, 54 Phillips Way, will have their opening reception on Thursday, February 2 from 4 to 6 p.m. Join us then to meet these artists and experience their work first hand! In her exhibition, 54 Phillips Way, Francesca Baldarelli salvages and reuses discarded or re-gifted materials. As she describes it, she combines the objects “to create curious moments of memory,” for herself and the viewer. “As time passes,” Baldarelli explains, “they transform. A crack here, a bend there, they slowly become different.” Changed, the objects move into the future, to create an open-ended experience for the artist and viewer alike. In this exhibition, Tobias Layman creates wood and metal sculptures that celebrate motion. Shaped like gears and other moving parts, Layman presents a sensory experience to the viewer, of sound, sight, texture, as well as an experience of the art works’ imperfection. “The gears are not cast from a mold or cut with state-of-the-art technology," Layman explains, "They are created by hand. Over and over. The gears do not align perfectly and they do not spin effortlessly.” In fact, Layman says, their flaws transform them beyond the realm of machines. “The imperfections warrant a sense of mortality. Their life span is unknown, and that unpredictability helps augment them and give them life.” About the Artists Tobias Layman is a graduate student in sculpture, with an assistantship teaching Ceramics I and Drawing I. Layman received the BFA, cum laude, in ceramics, from Jacksonville State University in 2014. He has exhibited in national and regional exhibitions including 35 Live: CoCA Member’s Show, Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle, WA; DAMNED IX, Detroit, MI; A Different Vision, Plymouth, MA; The Big Dance Exhibit, a juried exhibition in Des Moines, IA; and Abstracts Art Exhibition, Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery, where he received an honorable mention. Layman has been a studio assistant for the Department of Art at Jacksonville State University, an assistant instructor at John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC, and an instructor and ceramic technician at Earthworks Pottery Studio in Rome, GA. He is a recipient of the Thames Endowed Scholarship and the Joseph and Allen Sella Endowed Scholarship at UA. His art website is http://talceramics.weebly.com/. Francesca Baldarelli is a graduate student in printmaking with an assistantship. She currently teaches Introduction to Printmaking and assists in Color Theory. She has assisted in Drawing II and Intro to Printmaking. Her work combining printmaking and ceramics will be in the group exhibition, Clay Review 3 at the Abernathy Arts Center in Sandy Springs, GA, in January and February, 2017. She has exhibited her work in the Chautauqua Institution Student Exhibition at the Fowler Kellogg Gallery, Chautauqua, NY. Her Graduating BFA Show was held at the John J. McDonough Museum, Youngstown, OH and she has been included in several group exhibitions at Bliss Hall Gallery at Youngstown State University. Baldarelli received the BFA, cum laude, in painting and printmaking from Youngstown State University in 2012. She attended the Chautauqua Institution School of Art in Chautauqua, NY, in 2014 and the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice in 2010. She received a UA College of Arts and Sciences Graduate Council Fellowship in 2015, the CISA Visual Arts at Chautauqua Institute Scholarship in 2014. At YSU, Baldarelli received a four-year American Legion Auxiliary Scholarship, a Study Abroad Grant, Venice, Italy, in 2010 and the Student Art Association Painting Award in 2009. Her art website is http://fmbaldarelli9.wixsite.com/portfolio. A thesis exhibition is one of the requirements for the successful completion of the Master of Arts program in the UA Department of Art and Art History. For more information about our graduate programs, visit this page: http://art.ua.edu/academics/undergraduate-programs/. GALLERY VISITOR PARKING ON UA CAMPUS The Campus Drive Parking Deck at the corner of Hackberry Lane and Campus Drive provides visitor parking at a nominal cost, and is only a five-minute walk to Garland and Woods halls. Buses also run on varying schedules from the deck. To walk to Woods Quad from the parking deck, exit the main doors of the parking deck and cross Hackberry Lane southwest to Margaret Drive. Follow Margaret Drive to Capstone Drive, which runs between Gorgas Library and Garland Hall. Follow Capstone Drive to Garland Hall and the Sarah Moody Gallery of Art, and to Woods Hall and the Sella-Granata Art Gallery. For more information on bus schedules, go to http://crimsonride.ua.edu/
UA Art and Art History Students Create City Bike Racks
If you ride your bicycle into downtown Tuscaloosa and you need a place to park it, look for the funky new bike rack at the intersection of 4th Street and 23rd Avenue. The bike racks, with bright red curving shapes that undulate before your eyes, were designed by recent Art and Art History graduate Alli Sloan and built by Sloan and engineering-turned-studio art major Brandt Deeds for the City of Tuscaloosa. Sloan and Deeds are former and current students of sculpture professor Craig Wedderspoon. They also created sculptures for Nucor Children’s Charity Classic silent auction. City of Tuscaloosa officials asked Professor Wedderspoon if his sculpture students would design and build bike racks to go all over Tuscaloosa - and his students have accepted the challenge. The design in each location around town will be different. The next racks will be placed at Alberta Park and will be designed by Brandt Deeds. Deeds hopes to have them completed early in the spring of 2017. Images courtesy of Craig Wedderspoon. Source: Professor Craig Wedderspoon, craig.wedderspoon@ua.edu or (205) 348-1898. Contact: Rachel Dobson, communications specialist: rachel.dobson@ua.edu or (205) 348-1893.
UA Sculptures Break 3-Year Auction Record for Children’s of Alabama
Steel sculptures created by UA Department of Art and Art History members in 2016 were auctioned off for the largest total donation to Children's of Alabama the department has made since it began participating in the Nucor Children’s Charity Classic live auction three years ago. Children's of Alabama is the only medical center in the state dedicated solely to the care and treatment of children and serves as the primary site for University of Alabama at Birmingham pediatric care. UA Art and Art History undergrad art majors, a staff member (who is also an alumnus), and a professor raised $78,000 for Children’s of Alabama this year. Engineering-turned-studio art major Brandt Deeds and New College major and art student Nick Jackson together made their first sculpture for the charity auction, a collaborative project that brought in $12,000 to the pediatric care facility. BFA alumnus Eric Nubbe, who now works as Foundry Specialist for the department, has designed and created works for the last three charity auctions. Two of his steel sculptures brought high bids of $15,000 and $11,000 each. This year, Nubbe and Professor Craig Wedderspoon collaborated on a piece that brought $21,000. The high bid of $25,000 went to a steel version of “Simon the Lion,” Wedderspoon’s third year casting the Children's of Alabama mascot. The two previous “Simons” were cast in bronze and brought in $15,000 each. This year, Wedderspoon collaborated with UAB’s Metallurgical Engineering foundry to cast “Simon” in Nucor steel. Nucor donates all the materials for the sculptures. After the auction was over, Wedderspoon said one of Nucor’s CEOs commissioned him to do another steel "Simon the Lion" for an additional donation to the hospital of $20,000. Wedderspoon said, “We had an incredibly successful night…This brings our three-year total to $176,000, every penny of which goes directly to the hospital.” Wedderspoon attended the auction and banquet and listened to stories about some of the facility's patients. He said that participating in Nucor’s fund-raising for Children’s of Alabama makes him grateful for many things. “I am reminded of how truly incredible it is to be alive and to be afforded the privilege of working to teach young men and women how to use their skills, knowledge and passion, not only to be successful in life, but to share what they have learned and to contribute to their community.” Images above courtesy of Craig Wedderspoon. Images of the sculptures and their creators from 2015 and 2014 are below. Source: Professor Craig Wedderspoon, craig.wedderspoon@ua.edu or (205) 348-1898. Contact: Rachel Dobson, communications specialist: rachel.dobson@ua.edu or (205) 348-1893.